


Secret First Hours

by Coquitoa



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25789171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coquitoa/pseuds/Coquitoa
Summary: "“I’ll wait however long it takes,” Adora says, drawing soothing circles with her hands on Catra’s back, “because you’re right here. I’m here with you, I’m not going anywhere. From now on it’s you and me together at the end of the world, like we used to say, remember? But... for real this time. No secrets. Nothing getting in the way of being together. No judgement. We tell each other everything we feel, no matter how strange it is to us.”“Everything we feel?” Catra asks.“I mean... yeah.”“Okay.” Catra pauses, and then decides to finish her thought: “Because I’m feeling really strongly about kissing you right now.”"The war is over, but that doesn't mean Catra's work is done. With a lot of unlearning to do, she's embarking on her most trying times yet... dealing with the aftermath of what she's done in the past.Definitely a little sexy, but no explicit content here.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Perfuma & Scorpia (She-Ra), Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 174





	Secret First Hours

**Author's Note:**

> Just to warn/clarify, it gets a little steamy but there is no explicit content in this story. Just a drop of sexy because, hey, they're canonically in their 20s by the end so why not.
> 
> If you'd like to follow my brand new catradora brainrot Twitter afterwards, you can find me at @friendsofcatra . Send me a DM or leave a comment down here, let's freak out together lmao.
> 
> All love,  
> Nani

_ Secret First Hours _

It had been a week since everything changed.

The war had ended, but Brightmoon was still trying to get fully back on its feet after all the chaos, managing the logistics of their own kingdom and bringing as much help as they could to the rest of Etheria in the aftermath. This all needed to happen before the Best Friend Squad could even begin to discuss their plans to head back up to space.

But they had time now. There was a lightness in the air with this knowledge. The new added greenery proved to stretch all throughout the planet, bringing its own set of magical anomalies, and people were still getting used to life without the looming threat of the Horde. And who else could feel that most of all but Catra.

Coming from a place where she’d only ever known to follow the instinct of survival, Catra was having a hard time adjusting to the lack of routines in this new world. She wasn’t a soldier anymore, but her body still woke her up at five in the morning, begging her to have some constants. Adora used to be a heavy sleeper back at the barracks, but now she wakes at the smallest sound of her stirring, and Catra always feels guilty about stealing her dreams like that, no matter how many times Adora went “ppft, it’s fine” and waved it away with that goofy smile of hers.

“Hey, now we get these secret first hours together, every morning,” she says, and tries to cuddle her in that way that makes Catra tickle and squirm.

Queen Glimmer had decided to officially pardon her in front of all Brightmoon on the grounds of the fact that their planet would not exist anymore if she hadn’t played a key part in their Rebellion. It was all for show, of course, they needed to make these things official in order to maintain a sense of normalcy in their kingdom and their new daily lives, Catra knew they would never even consider not pardoning her after everything they went through—Scorpia had to do it too, anyways, even Adora back when she first joined the Rebellion—but she was still dealing with her own insecurities about her new life. (Not that she would ever admit that to anybody.)

Whenever she allowed herself a quiet corner in the castle, those strange illusive thoughts would come rushing towards her:  _What if they’re lying? What if they’re all pretending? Who would ever want someone like me? I’m not a good person… What if Adora doesn’t really want me?_

But then one look at Adora, an open book of love sprawled all across her face, always with an outstretched hand inviting her in, and all the doubts melt away with an overwhelming sense of stupidity.  _ How could I have ever thought that?_

Catra had been working on these thoughts, but it had only been a week, and there’s only so much  Perfuma can teach her about how to deal with these feelings. She had helped her make a schedule, to stick to a rhythm so as to lessen the effects of her anxiety and PTSD. She had taught her breathing exercises, meditation techniques, journaling approaches… And it was up to Catra to continue, she had to do the work herself, on her own for the first time.

Perfuma was on a recon mission this week. She was accompanying Scorpia to the remains of the Fright Zone, where the Princess Alliance planned to help rebuild Scorpia’s kingdom completely anew… though everyone also knew they both just needed time on their own together, Scorpia had been under Prime’s control for so long, and it had taken a toll on Perfuma. That's why they left the mission to the two of them.

Catra felt a temporary jealousy towards them. With Adora being She-Ra and all, they were needed in the palace, until everything was sorted out. She just hoped she could keep it together long enough for her and Adora to have a trip of their own, and get to talk about all the things that have been left unsaid between them and the three years it took to get here.

“Hey Catra… you’re still awake?”

Catra looks up from her curled up state on Adora’s bed to see her own girlfriend staring back at her with piercing eyes in the dark.

Girlfriend… they hadn’t even talked about calling themselves girlfriends, it just sort of slipped out when Catra’s pardon was being discussed at the roundtable, Glimmer had point-blank said: “I’ll be the one to vouch for her, I’m the queen and I can talk about our time together in Prime’s ship and how Catra saved me… Adora, we all love She-Ra but the people might be a little dubious if Catra is only vouched for by her girlfriend.” Adora had turned a deep shade of crimson and had responded with “Right, right. I, pffft, I understand  coooompletely . My g-girlfriend, yes.” Then she’d looked at Catra with the biggest, goofiest look of embarrassment on her face, all big eyes and a small smile, it had made  Catra’s outrageous burst of laughter completely unavoidable. “Yup,” Catra had continued for Adora, “what my dumb  _ girlfriend _ is trying to say, Sparkles, is that we totally understand your point because it’s true! And we are definitely  _girlfriends_ and you can call us juuuust that:  _ girlfriends _ … right Adora, my  _ girlfriend _ ?”

And Adora couldn’t help the comical sigh of relief that came out of her sweaty face. “Riiight!”

_ Sparkles _ had looked a little miffed. “Okay, you weirdos, just don’t embarrass me in front of the whole kingdom.”

Now Adora sits down on the bed, the look on her face turning slightly worrisome with a frown. “I’m sorry the meeting took so long, I was supposed to be done earlier but we had an unexpected update from Double Trouble and…” But then Adora cups  Catra’s cheek, and her voice turns even softer. “Have you been… crying?”

Catra sits up with a jolt, a hand immediately going to her face. It’s wet.

“I--I guess I was...” She must have dissociated again.

Catra quickly turns to furiously wipe the snot off her nose and the tears from her cheeks. She hated the way she felt whenever someone saw her cry, even if it was Adora. “Sorry, I don’t know why I--”

“Hey, look at me.” Catra turns reluctantly to look back at Adora. “You don’t have to hide this side of you from me. I know I’ve been here longer than you have but, trust me, it gets easier. We were taught that softness was a sign of weakness but, Catra, this is how we become stronger together. You don’t have to say anything right now, I just want you to know it’s okay to feel these things.”

After a few deep shuddering breaths, Catra snorts. “Definitely easier said than done.” Her fists ball up but she tries to keep her voice level. “I hate this, I hate how small I feel.”

Adora cups her girlfriend’s shoulder. “I know.”

“It’s this feeling I’ve been running from for so long… and I’m so tired, Adora. I’m so tired of it. I feel like it’s eating me alive but I don’t want to dump this all on you. I don’t want to be a burden.”

Adora curls up against Catra, beckoning her to lean against her chest, but Catra remains unmoving, her tail puffed up like when she feels threatened. “I promise, you’re not dumping anything on me, I want to listen.”

“I just,” Catra hesitates. “I know we haven’t been doing this for very long.”

“This?”

“Us… together. A  _ couple _ .”

“Yeah?”

“And… I know we’ve slept on the same bed for most of our lives. But it feels different now, and it’s scary but it’s familiar and... comforting. But I can’t help all of the second-guessing I’m doing.”

“Second-guessing… how?”

“I,” Catra hesitates again, then decides against it. “I don’t think I deserve you. I think I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to prove to myself that I do. And for that I need to apologise for… for everything.” Catra felt the sting of tears threatening to spill.

“Catra, you don’t have to--”

“No, I really do. I want to. Just… please let me?”

After a few seconds, Adora finally sighs in defeat, and nods her off.

“Everything I’ve ever done, has been a reaction to losing you. None of it was your fault. I did it all and I need to take moral responsibility for it. Even love isn’t an excuse for my actions… I mean, I almost destroyed Etheria just because you left  _ me _ to do the right thing. I could have joined you. But I was afraid… I’ve only ever known one thing for sure all my life, and it was that I wanted to be by your side. And I was willing to ruin everyone else’s just to get you back and that was just… so, so wrong. I only ever learned to manipulate to get what I want, I never learned any other way to get what I wanted and I only wanted  _you_ and I knew that, I was so stupid to think it could ever work like that when the proof was right in front of me for three whole years.  I learned all of this from Shadow Weaver and I didn’t realize---I thought I was so smart by being aware of their tactics---but I was just part of the problem… Granted, Perfuma tells me I have abandonment issues due to the carelessness and neglect of Shadow Weaver, but it doesn’t justify how I let my own anger get in the way, I was so  _ so _ angry and so convinced you didn’t care about me and Perfuma--”

Adora’s eyes were watery with pride. “And  you ’ve been working with _Perfuma_ on all this?”

“ _ Adora! _ ”

“Sorry, sorry, carry on--”

“The point is… I need you to know I’m actively working on it, really. That I know what I did was wrong and that I never want us to go through that again. I’ll never be that  _ person _ again. I’m still so afraid all the time that this isn’t real, that this is all a mind trick and that we’re not really together, but you always bring me back to reality by just holding my hand. You deserve to know that. I love you. And I’m trying to be better.”

A few moments pass as they both try to take in the weight of Catra’s words.

Until finally, “Catra… Thank you.” Adora closes the gap between them, finally letting herself take hold of Catra’s hands. “That couldn’t have been easy for you to say. I already  _ knew _ who you were. We grew up together. I’ve loved you since before I knew what love was. I’ve seen your monsters and I’ve seen your best, even before the world was at risk. And I loved you then, I love you now.” She lets her forehead rest against Catra’s. “It’s hard for me too, you know? I learned the same things you did at the Horde, but I slowly unlearned them with the help of my friends. I know you will too. Even Glimmer pulled the off switch on the world, but here we all are. Learning and believing in our love for each other. Willing it to be true. Your love for me---our love for each other---saved the world, how could anything invoking that much magic, ever be imaginary?”

Catra looks at her with wide eyes, the truth in her words both slicing her open and making her lighter somehow. Her skin felt warm and she could feel her heart fluttering against her chest. When Catra still didn’t move, however, Adora opened her arms wide.

“Come here,” she beckoned, and this time Catra complied, burying herself close against Adora’s side. “Do you know how long I waited for this? For us? Don’t you think I’d be patient enough by now?” she laughs softly.

They look at each other's eyes, this moment so fragile and new between them.

“I’ll wait however long it takes,” Adora says, drawing soothing circles with her hands on  Catra’s back, “because you’re right here. I’m here with you, I’m not going anywhere. From now on it’s you and me together at the end of the world, like we used to say, remember? But... for real this time. No secrets. Nothing getting in the way of being together. No judgement. We tell each other everything we feel, no matter how strange it is to us.”

“ _Everything_ we feel?” Catra asks.

“I mean... yeah.”

“Okay.” Catra pauses, and then decides to finish her thought: “Because I’m feeling really strongly about kissing you right now.”

“Oh!” Adora laughs, a shy, dorky laugh, “I mean-- y-yeah you can totally, um, yeah, you can kiss me.” 

And Catra feels immensely lucky in that instant, to be looking up at her best friend,  her _girlfriend_ ,  being flustered about something they’d already done before.

She wraps her arms around Adora then, taking in her stormy gray eyes flashing blue with magic, and the slight flush on her cheeks. With a hand resting behind her neck, she finally pecks her lips, gingerly, carefully, like she’s holding a baby bird on her palms. Adora breathes in the smell of peppermint coming from  Catra’s lips, and smiles. A look of adoration sprawled across her face.

That’s when Catra gives her a mischievous smile, catching Adora off-guard. Catra then proceeds to slowly climb up and kiss Adora’s neck, then her collarbones, down to her arms, to the center of her wrist holding her pulse. This propels her forward, and she slowly places herself on top of Adora. She curls up on her lap and presses an ear against her chest, listening hard for the beat she used to know so well when they were children at the Horde.

Adora, afraid to break the spell, didn’t move. Just allowed Catra to familiarize herself with this new territory she was claiming for the first time without threat.

Catra rubs her face against Adora’s chest, then up to her hair, burrowing herself deep against her neck. That’s when Catra started to nibble on her ear, which made Adora moan softly, catching the both of them by surprise.

Adora immediately flushed a bright red. “Maybe you should... not... “ Catra stops and untangles her face from Adora’s ponytail slowly, a smug smile on her face. “But that... that felt nice.”

With eyes and smile so big they shine like stars, Catra purrs. “Yeah, it sure sounded like it.”

“ _ Catra _ ...” Adora says, the name barely sounding like a warning.

“Fine, fine. You’re right.” Catra retreats slightly, but stays curled on top of her.

And with a shocked voice, Adora responds. “Did you just... say I was right?”

“Adora, can you please not?”

“Yup, okay I’ll stop.” She says, but her smile remains, though it looks a little nervous. “Sorry... I guess I’m just… I’m scared too. I know it’s stupid, but we’ve never been this open with each other and it’s pretty overwhelming. Maybe we should take things… slow.”

“Yeah, I get that...” Catra agrees, truthfully.

“Yeah. We have time.”

“Yeah...”

Then Adora says, “Can I still... can I kiss  _ you _ now?”

Catra looks back at her with a little surprise, Adora’s face so tender and open, always an invitation. She whispers back: “Of course you can, dummy.”

Adora takes  Catra’s face in her hands and places a single kiss on her forehead. Then her nose. The small touches leaving happy trails of warmth inside Catra that pooled all the way into her stomach. Then kisses on her cheeks. Her chin.

… And then Catra  _ giggles _ . “You’re always gonna give me a hard time aren’t you?”

Adora couldn’t help but laugh along. Right there, looking at Catra in the half-light of the moon shining through the window, a new kind of feeling took hold of her. A fierce need to protect this thing they have found, this secret that was only theirs to keep. It was this instinct that drove her own lips to Catra’s laughing mouth, and  kiss ed her deeply. Pouring all of her dreams, all of her terrible visions and nightmares, into one passionate plea of love. Catra kissed her back with double the force, hungry, catching Adora’s ponytail in her claws and snapping her hair-tie at once, letting her blonde waves cascade down her fingers, gathering the soft strands on the back of her neck. Catra couldn’t believe she had forgotten what Adora smelled like before---vanilla, sandalwood and amber---after all these years she still smelled the same. Intoxicating. Delicious.

And before the night ends, even before they curl into each other like puzzle pieces---touching and discovering each other in ways they only ever thought about in their dreams---before they shudder and whisper their names to each other like promises they tend to keep, before they fall into the deepest sleep any of them have ever had, there is a moment when Catra pulls back slightly and takes Adora’s face in both her palms, both of them drunk on something they’d never really tasted before.

“Let me look at you,” she says, and Adora kisses both the palms keeping her head upright. “I want to remember you right now. I want to remember this. I want to have this with me for every time I doubt this is real, every time I think I don’t deserve this... I love you, Adora. I’m so scared of losing you every second we spend together.”

And Adora responds with a dazed, loving smile: “I love  _ you _ , Catra. And I’m scared too. So scared.”

Catra lets the tears she’s been holding back fall freely without shame. “Okay, I love you.”

“I love you.”

They find their foreheads touching once more here, breathing heavy and thick with emotion.

And then Catra purrs again, tauntingly: “... Whatever happened to ‘we should take things slow’ just a few minutes ago?”

“Oh?” Adora plays along, a knowing smile spread across her face. “You want me to stop?”

“Don’t you dare,” Catra laughs, surrendering herself again to Adora.

But that was all before, in the dark of the room lit by reflective crystals and a flowing waterfall, the moon their only witness. The heat of their dancing bodies cooled by the night air from the open window.

Now they both sleep, holding each other, Adora’s bed sheets long forgotten at their feet. When the morning sun begins to shine its first rays over the horizon, Catra doesn’t stir. She sleeps. They both sleep past five, past six and seven. Their secret first hours in the morning already spent the night before.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! 
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment with your favorite Catradora moment! 
> 
> What kind of Catradora fanfic would you like to read these days? You never know where inspiration might strike... I do love writing about my two favorite lesbians, haha.
> 
> 'Til next time,  
> Nani


End file.
